Page 1 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm
1
March 1917
The Irish Sea
England emerged from over themurky horizon, the line between earth and sky partially hidden by shifting bands of rain. The coast was dark and barren, but so very welcome after a stormy passage across the Atlantic that tested even Isaac Bell’s notoriously iron stomach. Technically he hadn’t spotted England but rather Anglesey Island, off the north Welsh coast, that helped mark the passage into the Mersey estuary and the port city of Liverpool.
Since the start of the war, the docks of Southampton on England’s south coast had become Military Embarkation Port No. 1 and were used exclusively for pouring men and matériel onto freighters and troopships bound for France and the front lines and for seeing the return of the countless wounded. As a result Liverpool had become the principal port for all transatlantic traffic.
Bell had been bound for Liverpool once before, but had never made it, as theLusitaniahad been torpedoed as she turned northward around the southern tip of Ireland and the sheltered waters ofthe Irish Sea. He reasoned that even with the Germans once again unleashing their wolf packs in the no-holds-barred doctrine of unrestricted submarine warfare, the odds of him being torpedoed twice in the same region were long enough to leave his mind at ease.
The ship he’d taken from New York was far from the luxurious Cunard liner he’d last sailed to England aboard. TheDuke of Monmouthwas barely five hundred feet in length and had sailed under many different flags by even more different owners in the two decades since her launching. She sported a single funnel amidships and had just four decks for passengers. The first-class accommodations were on the top deck and were rumored to be adequate but dated.
For this mission, Bell was joined by Eddie Tobin, another Van Dorn detective. Like Bell, Tobin sailed on a second-class ticket in keeping with their cover. They presented themselves as the employees of an art dealer who was shipping paintings back to England for a client who’d originally sent them to America for safekeeping at the start of the war. In truth they were escorting five hundred pounds of gold bullion that had been donated by dozens of prominent New York and Boston families to help the Allied war effort. Once the crate landed on the pier in Liverpool their job was done.
Bell looked northward. A single British destroyer was on patrol, looking as lean and lethal as a stiletto. She seemed small and ineffective when compared to the mighty dreadnoughts the Admiralty had on hand to blockade Germany, but her four-inch deck guns and torpedo launchers were more than a match for any lurking U-boat.
A signalman on the warship’s bridge was working the handle of an Aldiss lamp, sending a coded signal to theDuke of Monmouth. Bell turned to look up toward the liner’s bridge and saw the blond woman. Like the other time he’d seen her on deck during the miserable crossing, he was struck by both her beauty and the graceful wayshe carried herself, even now after enduring what must have been a week of mal de mer. She didn’t so much as look down. Bell allowed himself another moment to admire her profile and turned back to the sea once again.
The tides on the Mersey estuary are among the highest in the British Isles and so it wasn’t too much later that the ship began to approach the river and the city of Liverpool. A black pall of coal smoke marked the distant city, far darker than the pewter sky that had enshrouded theDuke of Monmouthsince leaving New York. Ship traffic on the water had noticeably increased as freighters and oilers from the United States awaited their turn to unload at the overtaxed port. More Navy ships were also present, mostly other destroyers or small armed launches that buzzed around the merchant flotilla like watchful sheepdogs attending to their flock.
After taking on a harbor pilot, theDuke of Monmouthentered the wide tidal estuary. On the left bank, the docks of Liverpool were total bedlam, with steam-powered cranes hauling pallets of cargo from countless ships’ holds and armies of stevedores trouping down gangways loaded with sacks of American grain or Indian rice or casks of Jamaican rum. Small coastal boats ducked in and around the bigger ships bringing supplies, while massive coal barges were kept in constant motion by tugs and towboats to feed the freighters’ voracious boilers.
Bell became concerned when his liner’s course kept it away from the city and along the river’s south shore. He was about to find an officer to get an explanation when the chief purser appeared at his elbow. A few of the crew had been made aware of the Van Dorn detective’s mission if not the actual cargo. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Bell,” the veteran purser said with a courteous tip of his cap. “Captain Abernathey’s compliments.”
“What is it, Tony? Why are we here and not over there?” Bell asked, pointing to the busy port they were slowly steaming past.
“A freighter is still in our berth. There was a problem with a crane and it’s taking much longer to unload. Rather than have us wait, the harbormaster is diverting us to an open dock upriver a bit, near the Runcorn Gap. That’ll put us in the Manchester Ship Canal for some miles.”
Bell opened his mouth to ask a question, but the purser had an answer at the ready.
“Arrangements have been made to have your crate met just as if we’d docked in our original slot. You have nothing to worry about.”
Eddie Tobin appeared just then. Where Bell was tall and straight, with blond hair and handsome features, Eddie slouched in a poorly fitted suit and his bulging eyes and thick neck gave him the look of a frog. His head was more scalp than thin gray hair, adding to the illusion. He worked out of the Van Dorn New York office, which had been Bell’s preferred station for a couple of years now, and specialized in the criminal activity in and around the city’s countless docks, piers, shipping terminals, and every other place seafarers and fishermen could be found. Said to have salt water in his veins, he’d had little trouble stomaching the rough Atlantic passage.
“Any sign of foul play?” Eddie asked before Bell could.
“Foul play?” the purser said, cocking his head slightly.
“Sabotage of the crane at our assigned berth,” Bell clarified, “to force us to switch last-minute.”
The Englishman’s entire profession was predicated on keeping people happy and so it was clear by the look on his face that he didn’t know the answer to the question and hadn’t thought to ask it himself. “I, ah…”
“Doesn’t really matter, Isaac,” Eddie reminded his boss. “Ourjob’s done when the crate’s off this tub. What happens to it here is on the local boys, not us.”
“Call it a professional courtesy,” Bell said.
“We’ve got some time,” Tony the purser said. “I’ll have the wireless operator signal the harbormaster again and find out what exactly happened to that crane.”
Bell considered the offer and despite having no stake in the crate’s fate once on English soil, he agreed and sent the man off to the radio shack.
“You don’t ever quit, do you?” Eddie remarked, resting his arthritic hands on the rail.
“I don’t have it in me,” Bell agreed.
“And that’s why you’re old man Van Dorn’s chief detective and I’m still grubbing around the docks like some greenhorn.”
Bell chuckled.
